Experts seek to save trees from ice storms

Frank Telewski, a professor of plant biology at Michigan State University, examines a red maple tree that was damaged by an ice storm on the university campus in East Lansing, Mich.
(Photo:
John Flesher/AP
)

EAST LANSING, Mich. – A vicious ice storm that made Christmas week a nightmare from the Midwest to Maine shattered hundreds of trees at Michigan State University, where inch-thick layers of ice snapped thick limbs and trunks of stately towers that had stood for generations.

It was a distressing sight for a campus billed as an urban forest where scientists since the 1800s have kept records of every tree, where native oaks and maples coexist with exotic Siberian elms and Japanese pagodas. But amid the destruction, Frank Telewski saw opportunity and jumped into action with his tools of choice — not chain saw or ax, but tape measure and computer.

The biology professor and curator of Michigan State’s arboretum is teaming with experts in several states to study which kinds of trees best withstand ice and other severe weather, and ways of making them even less vulnerable.

The project could present communities with difficult questions of whether to give up on trees that have long been fixtures of their landscape, such as dazzling but weak ornamentals that beautify downtowns and boulevards, in favor of less spectacular stalwarts that can bear up under strain.

“If we can do something to reduce the potential damage, it’s going to be a great service to the country — make us better prepared to survive these storms,” Telewski said.

Winter’s challenges

Heavy snow brings its challenges every winter, but ice storms are especially ruinous. They snap power lines, leaving multitudes in the dark. Ice layers can boost weight on limbs by up to 100 times, shredding them or uprooting entire trees, a risk to life and property as they topple. Researchers say losses regularly exceed $225 million annually.

The just-concluded winter, in which ice storms wreaked havoc across much of the eastern U.S., may spur more city parks departments, subdivision developers and even individual homeowners to reduce future losses by planting different trees.

“Strike teams” of U.S. Forest Service and state experts have been pushing the idea with officials in storm-damaged communities.

“It really doesn’t sink in until a community has a storm and tries to recover,” said John Parry, a Forest Service urban forester.

A 2007 ice storm so devastated Norman, Okla., that enough debris was collected — at a cost of $6 million — to halfway fill the stadium where the University of Oklahoma Sooners play football, Mayor Cindy Rosenthal said. Trees are not taken for granted in that state, where much of the landscape is naturally prairie. Its loss of prized hackberries, pin oaks and other varieties, some more than 40 years old, was a blow.

“The storm was traumatic,” Rosenthal said.The state has given away nearly 7,000 trees for replanting, but it’s uncertain how long it will take to fill in the gaps.

Tree choices

The city is now making tough choices about trees. Absent may be ornamental varieties such as the Bradford pear, which many cities plant along downtown streets for their attractive springtime blooms, although they’re notoriously fragile. Another tree with a bad reputation is the silver maple, which is brittle but popular with housing developers because it grows rapidly.

Favored are the lacebark elms, bald cypress and various oaks because the city considers them resistant to drought as well as ice.

Some municipal officials question whether ice resistance should be such a priority.

In Springfield, Mass., city forester Ed Casey says factors like resistance to disease and pests are uppermost in his mind.

With ice storms, “You can have perfectly healthy trees that are structurally sound, have good strength capacity, and they can still be damaged,” Casey said.

BENEFITS OF TREES

Making storms less costly isn’t the only payoff from cultivating hardier urban forests, said Pete Smith, program manager for the Arbor Day Foundation. Trees provide an array of benefits — from absorbing pollutants to providing shade that cuts energy costs — and the bigger the better.